The portrait, hanging high above their heads, twinkled down on both of them.
"I shall win," said Uncle Falcon.
David did not "tie himself up in knots" to-day. He sat very still, looking at Diana with those calm steadfast eyes, which made her feel so young and inconsequential, and far removed from him.
He looked ill and worn, but happy and at rest; and, as he talked, his face wore an expression she had often noted when, in preaching, he became carried away by his subject; a radiance, as of inner glory shining out; a look as of being detached from the world, and independent of all actual surroundings.
"Undoubtedly I shall keep to it, Miss Rivers," he said, "unless, for any reason, you change your mind. And I saw light on the subject this morning."
"Oh, then you 'slept on it,' as our old nurses used to say?"
David smiled.
"I never had an old nurse," he said. "My mother was my nurse."
Diana did not notice that her question had been parried. "And what made you feel it right this morning?" she asked.
David hesitated.